PORT ANGELES — Max Mania is no longer the only Port Angeles City Council member opposing the city’s plan to eliminate sewage overflows.
City Councilwoman Sissi Bruch, who took her seat on the council last month, joined Mania on Tuesday in voting no on three construction-related contracts for the $41.7 million project scheduled to begin in June.
“I’m not convinced this is the right solution,” she said.
The overflows occur when stormwater floods the city’s sewage system, parts of which were built to carry both, and untreated effluent is dumped into Port Angeles Harbor.
Infiltration of groundwater into dilapidated sewage pipes also is a significant contribution to the problem.
About 32 million gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater overflow on average each year.
Store water
The city, which is required by the state Department of Ecology to solve the problem, has chosen a solution that involves using a large tank on the former Rayonier site to store untreated sewage and stormwater that would overflow otherwise.
It also involves sliding new sewage pipes into the city’s industrial waterline from downtown to the tank.
Staff members said that solution is the least disruptive and least expensive.
Mania and Bruch said they oppose the project because it does not solve the root of the problem: faulty and inadequate infrastructure.
“I really hope and pray, frankly, that we can see the light on this,” said Mania, who criticized the use of a sewage tank not far from downtown, which he said also would be vulnerable to a large earthquake and tsunami.
“We’re trying to move this town forward.”
Environmental activists, including Darlene Schanfald of the Olympic Environmental Council, also have echoed their concerns.
Alternatives include removing stormwater from the city’s sewer system, which would require the construction of new stormwater and sewage pipes through much of the city, staff said.
That could cost as much as $180 million, they said.
The city will start the state-approved project, to be complete by 2016, by slip-lining the sewage pipes into the water line this summer.
That will involve construction along the waterfront trail and downtown near Oak Street and Front Street and near Railroad Avenue and Lincoln Street.
Other benefits of the project, city officials said, include the use of a larger outfall pipe acquired from Rayonier that transports waste farther out into the harbor and construction of a new bridge for the Olympic Discovery Trail on the Rayonier property that eliminates a detour around the wastewater treatment plant.
It also allows additional stormwater to be treated, staff said.
The agreements approved Tuesday in three 5-2 votes, with Mania and Bruch voting no, are for engineering services, awarded to Brown and Caldwell for $485,980; environmental engineering, awarded to Farallon Consulting for $60,878; and on-call construction management, awarded to Vanir Construction Management for up to $1.78 million.
The city averages 67 overflows a year.
It anticipates it will have 1.3 a year on average when the project is completed.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
